Saturday, June 20, 2009

Niagara Falls Then and Now: house razed at Ferry and Fallsview

Below: June 9, 2009 - looking east along the southside of Ferry St. towards Fallsview Blvd., in Niagara Falls Ont.
Above: same view, Jun.19, 2009; the old stuccoed-frame house has been demolished.
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Below: Jun.10, 2009 - looking at the south-west corner of Fallsview Blvd. and Ferry St. in Niagara Falls, Ont.; a vacant former restaurant stands on the corner, with the old, cream-coloured stucco house seen at the right.
above: same view, old house at right was demolished on Jun.19, 2009.
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below: Jun.10, 2009; closer view of house. It stood just east of the famous Capri Restaurant, a bit of which is seen at the far right.

Above: Jun.19, 2009 - same view, after house demolished.
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Below: Jun.10, 2009 - looking at the site from the north-west. The Skylon is in the distance.

above: same view, Jun.19, 2009

Friday, June 19, 2009

Time to criminally investigate the McGuinty Liberal's healthcare culpability

The St. Catharines Standard reported (in "Funding OK'd for extra paramedics", Jun.19, 2009) that Niagara Region will be paying to cover the additional expenses expected by the EMS in delivering patients to hospitals further away, now that the Liberals have forced the closure of two hospital ER's in Niagara.

Local taxpayers should not be responsible for funding failed Liberal health-care monopoly policies. Where did the billions of dollars from McGuinty's Liberal Health Tax go?

This is surreptitious downloading by the McGuinty-ites: typical Liberal health care duplicity.

(see also: http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2007/08/liberal-healthcare-duplicity-ontario.html )

Of course, we're just now finding out about the latest fiasco occurring surreptitiously in McGuinty's Liberal health care monopoly, with the ongoing eHealth scandal, where Liberal-friendly cronies and insiders were given millions of dollars of untendered contracts.

Reporters such as Matthew Van Dongen claim that our health care system is being "short changed" (see also: http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2009/06/cancer-surgeries-delayed-in-st.html), yet, at the same time, we see millions of dollars being simply given to Liberal buddies without scrutiny.

Wouldn't that money have helped Niagara 's EMS problem - a problem created by the Liberal-forced HIP plan? Wouldn't that money have helped patients, such as the Feors, who are suffering and trapped, without choice or recourse, on Liberal health care waiting lists?

The St. Catharines Standard (Jun.18, 2009) revealed in "McGuinty changes rules on consulting contracts" that former Liberal health minister George Smitherman had also given over a million dollars in untendered contracts to the same firm involved in the current eHealth scandal. This is the same slithery Smitherman who was claiming last year that hospitals were spending like drunken sailors; the same slimy Grit who -while enforcing a despotic single-payer, anti-patient-choice health monopoly - was also forcing LHIN's into unreasonable budget cuts.

St. Catharines Liberal health care monopolist MPP Jim Bradley ignorantly refused to call for any investigation into why the hospital in his own city of St. Catharines was found in 2007 to have the third-highest patient death rate in Canada. Bradley couldn't be bothered then, and still hasn't yet, given a public explanation for why this occurred on his watch. What, and why, was Jim Bradley hiding?

Well, we saw that, when further Liberal health scandals were revealed:

Jim Bradley refused to call in the ombudsman to investigate the deaths of hundreds of patients from C.dif infection, patients who were stuck in the Liberal's state-run, no-patient-choice health monopoly.

Jim Bradley refused to answer my letters asking him to explain why patients were dying in his Liberal-controlled and Liberal-underfunded state-monopoly.

Jim Bradley refused to call for any independent scrutiny into his government's health monopoly.

Jim Bradley refused to call for any independent oversight into his Liberal health care monopoly.

Jim Bradley refused to answer my questions about Ontario auditor Jim McCarter's previous reports, which lambasted the Liberal's serious health-care problems, and which all but predicted the current problems and scandals we're seeing.

A secretive Jim Bradley refused to discuss these matters, even while (unknown to the public at the time) his Liberals were already starting to implement their cosy eHealth scheme with their cronies!

Jim Bradley essentially ignored and refused to acknowledge the mounting evidence and concerns regarding the accumulating failures of his Liberal government's ideolgical and authoritarian health monopoly.

Jim Bradley refused to acknowledge or discuss his Liberal government's health policy failures, and Bradley, when he had the chance, refused to publicly call for transparency and oversight into his Liberal government's fiasco of a health monopoly - and notably, Bradley was playing the arrogant Liberal while his Liberals were forcing LHIN's across the province, including Niagara's, to cut back their budgets.

It is almost criminal that Liberals can get away with such unaccountable manipulation of their obligations, singing paeans to Tommy Douglas on one hand, while cutting and downloading health services and budgets on the other - and, all this while the Liberals astoundingly continue to perpetuate a false, duplicitous premise, a political deception, that single-payer medicare works!
These scandals just keep on coming, yet Smitherman wasn't fired; and Caplan wasn't either.

Liberals such as Jim Bradley, Dalton McGuinty, George Smitherman, and David Caplan, should be subject to criminal investigation into how their actions and policies - by enforcing an unreasonable health-care monopoly, devoid of oversight - have harmed, both physically and financially, patients in the province of Ontario. These Liberals should not be held harmless from the damage they are causing.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Cancer surgeries delayed in St. Catharines - Liberal Jim Bradley vanishes

S. Feor wrote in "Bed shortages and wait lists threaten lives", (St. Catharines Standard, Jun.16, 2009):

"My husband was scheduled for bladder cancer surgery at St. Catharines General Hospital on June 9. His doctor has operating room privileges only one day per month, and he waited three months for the date.

One hour before his operation, he was told that his surgery was cancelled due to a bed shortage, and has now been rescheduled to August. The Niagara Health System has just closed 16 beds. I'm sure my husband isn't the only one this has happened to, and he won't be the last.

My concern is for his quality of life while waiting for the surgery. My concern is, how long does it take for untreated cancer to spread?

They say that early detection means early cure. What is the point of knowing you have treatable cancer, only to find out that you have to wait for months for lifesaving surgery, just because NHS has decided to close more hospital beds?

Must we wait for the new hospital to be built? Will the new hospital eliminate cancellations from happening? Probably not. Is it the building or administration?"


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Well, there's another letter that ignorant St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley will ignore. Cancelled cancer surgeries, health care wait lists, bed closures, postponements ... yes, this is a Liberal-run health care monopoly at "work".
Patients, trapped in an ideological Liberal no-patient-choice health monopoly, are worrying and waiting while Bradley and his Liberals continue to pander to the single-payer medicare crowd's skewed socialist sense of entitlement.

Let's get it clear that reason why the NHS closed beds was because McGuinty's Liberals directed them to do so!! Jim Bradley's dirty, duplicitous Liberal ideology is all over this situation.
Just several days earlier, on Jun.12, 2009, the St. Catharines Standard carried another story "EMS requires budget hike: report", wherein writer Matthew Van Dongen reported:

"The cash-strapped Niagara Health System decided late last year to convert hospitals in Port Colborne and Fort Erie to urgent care centres as part of its hospital improvement plan, despite vocal local opposition."

(Turns out that Niagara's EMS ambulance services are asking for another $3 million, in order to get patients to the remaining Niagara emergency wards - and this might have to come out of the regional coffers! Talk about how health care monopolists stealthily download health care costs! Don't tell Michael Moore how sicko and duplicitous single-payer health care is!)

Noteworthy, though, is Van Dongen's phrase "cash-strapped Niagara Health System".

Did Van Dongen bother to explain why the NHS is "cash-strapped"?
Did Van Dongen - or his editors - bother to ask how it is, that a health-care monopoly - controlled by Ontario's single-payer-pushing Liberals - can possibly be "cash strapped"??!!
How can that even happen?!
Did the Standard reporter bother to go to the source of the problem - to local Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, whose government (unfortunately, for patients) is solely responsible for health care in the province, for a comment on the issue?

Did the reporter examine Liberal Bradley's long-running role in the issue of health care funding within an ideologically-motivated monopoly setting, which is controlled and funded by Ontario's Liberal majority government?
How can a "cash-strapped" hospital system exist under such tightly regulated circumstances? Aren't the Liberals the sole payers in their monopoly?

Why - surprise, surprise, there's no mention at all in this article of Good Ole Jimmy, or any other Ontario Liberal, for that matter!

No analysis of Dalton McGuinty's authoritarian Liberal policies which led to this "cash-strapped" health monopoly in the first place: no historical perspective provided, no list of questions - NOTHING whatsoever from the local press!!

It's as if Jim Bradley, miracle of miracles, had nothing at all to do with any of this!!
It's as if someone else - not the Liberals - is responsible for the underfunding!!
Van Dongen just doesn't dig deeper and give the sordid backstory on the issue.
Suddenly, just like that, the NHS becomes "cash strapped" - - -  all on its own!!
Yet, the fact that Ontario patients are banned by despotic Liberal law from arranging their own private health coverage (while Bradley's scumbag Liberal hypocrites fail to fund their own health care obligations) is somehow irrelevant, and beneath politically-correct discussion!!!!

Why bother questioning the local Liberal MPP, Jim Bradley - who is responsible for the health system BEING "cash-strapped"; who is responsible for the cancer surgery delays thrust upon the Feors!

What a St. Catharines double-standard.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Obstructionist Liberal MPP Jim Bradley helped cover up Health Ministry scandal by refusing to call for ombudsman access

Now that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal scumbag health-care monopolists have had the lid lifted on their eHealth scam, let's quickly look at this article, which appeared just a year ago, last June, in 2008, and then put it in perspective with today's eHealth scandal:

Maria Babbage wrote in "Powerful hospital lobby 'calling shots': Ombudsman", (St. Catharines Standard, Jun.7, 2008):

"The province's refusal to allow more independent oversight of its hospitals in the wake of concerns over C. difficile has given Ontario a black eye, provincial Ombudsman Andre Marin said Friday.

It's embarrassing that Ontario is "perpetuating the status quo" when it is the only province in Canada whose ombudsman doesn't have the power to oversee hospitals, he said.

"There's been a very powerful hospital lobby that's been calling the shots over this one, and I think members of the public are infuriated -- and rightly so -- that Ontario is not providing its citizens the scrutiny of a sector of the province which gobbles up $18 billion of revenue," Marin said.

"I mean, it's an incredibly large amount of money, and there are no checks and balances."

Marin investigated complaints about a hospital in January, but only after the government took over control of the facility by appointing a supervisor. He said his office has complained about the problem for decades, only to have the government turn a deaf ear.

"Every year we get hundreds of complaints from people and we're helpless, we cannot do anything about it," he said.

"Nor is there any other body that can investigate independently and make recommendations to fix the problem. So we're at the mercy of hospitals. We write them an $18-billion cheque, no questions asked."

For weeks, opposition parties have been accusing the government of covering up the extent of a C. difficile outbreak in Ontario hospitals and have repeatedly demanded more independent oversight of the province's hospitals.

NDP critic Cheri DiNovo renewed her calls for ombudsman oversight Friday after revealing that her 87-year-old uncle Joseph died in April after contracting the potentially deadly bacteria at a Toronto hospital.

The "phenomenal" man and retired sheet metal worker who was the "life of every party" had lived independently until he was hospitalized due to a urinary tract infection, DiNovo said.

"This is not the way anyone's life should end," she said.

Linda Del Grande, DiNovo's cousin who cared for her father during his five months in hospital, said it was difficult to obtain information about the infection from hospital staff.

"One of my frustrations is that we seem to be groping in the dark about this infection," she said.

"I still feel very much in the dark having talked to nurses and doctors and other health-care providers during all that time. I feel frustrated and confused about how serious this infection is."

C. difficile is believed to be responsible for 260 deaths in seven Ontario hospitals, including 62 at Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington.

The Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats claim those deaths could have been prevented if the province had acted more quickly after the infection claimed 2,000 lives in Quebec in 2003.

Health Minister George Smitherman recently ordered all hospitals to start reporting cases of C. difficile starting Sept. 30, the first of many types of infectious diseases that hospitals will be required to report to the public over the next year. "

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We can now see that Dalton McGuinty and his scumbag arrogant Liberal MPP's, such as Jim Bradley, were already hiding the eHealth scandal! The Liberals DID NOT want to risk having the ombudsman, or anyone else, examining the murky layers of the Liberal's unaccountable health care monopoly. It's clear, even a year ago, in June 2008, that the Liberals didn't want anyone looking into their health-care monopoly's methods of operation, and how these methods related to the veracity of the Liberal's political claims about their health monopoly's performance. If Dalton McGuinty's s secretive Liberal government had allowed ombudsman scrutiny even a year ago, then the current eHealth scandal now unfolding in June 2009, could have most certainly been brought to light much earlier, if not prevented altogether.

We were then - as we still are now - just supposed to trust Dalton and his Liberal scumbags, who continually pretend that there is nothing wrong with their monopoly health system!

The article above dealt with what was the issue in the summer of 2008: the Liberal's cover-up and refusal to allow independent scrutiny of their health care monopoly's hospitals, which we learned had killed hundreds of patients due to C.dif infections.

The ombudsman stated back in June 2008 (and we've known years earlier!) that although the Liberals spend billions of taxpayer dollars just on health care, "there are no checks and balances" in McGuinty's state-run health system. Arrogant Liberal MPP Jim Bradley ignored my requests that his Liberals allow the ombudsman access to scrutinize their health monopoly. Jim Bradley acted as an arrogant, ideological obstructionist, denying a process of transparency and independent scrutiny. Jim Bradley, typical dirtbag Liberal, refused to answer any questions related to his Liberal's atrocious handling of their health care obligations. The concepts of accountability, responsibility and independently-accessed oversight didn't, and still don't, penetrate the ideological blinders worn by arrogant monopolists such as Liberal MPP Jim Bradley.

Now, we have the Liberals tied in with all kinds of Liberal-friendly insiders - former Liberal staffers, or Liberal fundraisers - who are involved in this eHealth untendered-contracts-scam, yet good ole McGuinty still doesn't think that any impropriety has taken place in his secretive health monopoly! We see that an untendered contract was also given by the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities to the same Liberal-friendly consulting firm which is involved in the Health Ministry scandal, as Tanya Talaga wrote in "Consultant at eHealth was given more work", (Toronto Star, Jun.13, 2009):

"A consultancy group that received nearly $2 million in untendered contracts from eHealth Ontario was awarded another $435,000 in provincial work last year without having to compete for the deal, the Toronto Star has learned.

Courtyard Group received an untendered contract from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities worth $435,000 for 2,000 hours of work last September, government officials say.

Courtyard was assessing capital needs of colleges and universities prior to the $1.3 billion infrastructure funding announcement made in late May by the provincial and federal governments.

"We don't have that capacity in the ministry. That has been one of the weaknesses we have," the minister, John Milloy, told the Star in an interview yesterday.

"I will be very candid in saying I was surprised at the limited capacity when I became minister in dealing with capital requests."

Courtyard is an international consultancy whose Toronto office has strong ties to the Liberal government. Documents obtained by the Star show Courtyard's John Ronson, a co-chair of the 1995 Liberal election campaign, billed eHealth on March 18 and 19 for consulting on "risk management" and "governance" issues at $393 an hour for a total of $1,572 for four hours' work.
Ronson led the team on the universities contract, Milloy said.

Karli Farrow, a former policy adviser to Premier Dalton McGuinty and chief of staff to former Health Minister George Smitherman, was paid $10,646 for 32.5 hours of eHealth work as a Courtyard Group consultant in January. She left Smitherman's office in 2007.

EHealth Ontario has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks for doling out untendered contracts and hiring expensive consultants.

Milloy said Courtyard was chosen for its reputation, not because of its Liberal ties. "They are a proven player in the field," he said.

"Courtyard ... had done a lot of the same type of work in the hospital sector. John Ronson led the team," Milloy said. "We certainly got feedback from the university sector that he was very good at this type of analysis."

Government procurement rules allow sole-source contracts in urgent situations and this was a rush job to meet the provincial budget deadline, Milloy said."
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So where else is this cosy Liberal-friendly scam occurring? McGuinty now wants auditor Jim McCarter to look into this scam- at eHealth only. But, again, why wasn't McCarter allowed permanent access and oversight into the Liberal's health monopoly, in the first place, several years ago, when I had brought up this very concern to ignorant Liberal MPP Jim Bradley? The answer is that Liberals don't want any potentially-embarrassing investigations which they can't first control and manipulate. Bradley or McGuinty could have cared less when McCarter wrote about systemic problems in the Liberal's health system several years ago. (see: http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2008/03/state-run-monopoly-health-care-should.html)

McGuinty's Liberals at the time simply ignored auditor McCarter's concerns!! Now - as they have with the ombudsman - the Liberals have asked the auditor's office to look into only a small part of the health-care mess which they are now juggling, hoping no-one finds out about what they're doing behind all the other closed (yet publicly-funded) health-care doors.

Problem is, like before, McGuinty and his slimebag Grits are just delaying and putting up a smokescreen with their limited investigation, which they'll ignore like they did their previous phony 'investigations' - because the Liberals aren't compelled to follow or implement anything which the ombudsman or the auditor might recommend.

There are still NO 'checks and balances', and still NO transparency, under McGuinty's secretive Liberal health care monopoly.
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{UPDATE: Please fast-forward to my article in 2011, which directly links back to the same subject matter of this article. Liberal MPP Jim Bradley and his secretive Liberal  single-payer-pushing monopolists refused to publicly investigate  the hundreds of  C. diff deaths throughout Ontario in 2008; this was Liberal negligence on a mass-scale, which directly led to the 2011 C.diff outbreak in Niagara, where some 40 patients died.}
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The Walter Duranty WIGUS Hall of Shame

Borys Sydoruk of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote in "Ukrainian famine not 'alleged' ", (National Post, Jun.16, 2009):

"Re: Harper's Risky Foreign Habits, May 15.

By deploying the word "alleged" when referring to the genocidal nature of the Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine, this article displays partisanship. Since Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term "genocide," felt that the famine was genocidal, who cares what the ex-KGB men of the Kremlin think? Kudos to the government of Canada for standing on the side of truth despite the bleatings of the perpetrators' descendants."

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Can you imagine the uproar if one were to say the nazi Holocaust was "alleged"? Or that Poland started WWII, because they didn't, well, "accommodate/acquiesce to" Hitler's plans?! When is Canada going to start deporting all the KGB, Cheka, GPU, Smersh and NKVD - ist Kremlinites who may still be enjoying their stay in Canada? Those still lusting for the good ole days of Soviet imperialist terrorism, still denying the Holodomor, even now, in 2009, should be nominated for the New York Times ignoble Walter Duranty WIGUS (willfully ignorant/utterly stupid) Hall of Shame.

(see :http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2007/10/gbshaw-walter-duranty-dupes-denied.html)
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Iggy's asymmetrical democracy

Christina Spencer wrote in "Ignatieff won't rule out 'star' grit candidates", (St. Catharines Standard, May 12, 2009):

"Michael Ignatieff urged Liberals to rebuild the party from the ground up yesterday, but wouldn't rule out unilaterally appointing individual candidates, a practice some call undemocratic.

The leader, who will be officially crowned tomorrow, had little choice but to state his stance after former prime minister John Turner threw down the gauntlet at the party's national convention.

Turner said the party, which had shrunk to an emaciated shell of its former self before Ignatieff took over in December, "will not be rebuilt from the top down. It has to be rebuilt from the bottom up."

"I don't want to see any leader-appointed candidates across the country," Turner told a meeting of riding association presidents.

Ignatieff, who has focused the Liberals' biennial convention on rebuilding the party organization at the level of individual ridings, said he didn't agree.

"I believe very strongly and I've said since I became leader, I want to open nominations in every (riding) in the country, I want to rebuild the party from the grassroots up.

"But I cannot abandon the prerogative of a leader to make those appointments that I deem necessary," Ignatieff said, adding he planned to use the power only "rarely."

Normally, potential candidates compete for their party's nomination in a riding; the victor squares off against other parties in a federal election.

But leaders have sometimes circumvented this grassroots exercise in democracy by appointing "star" candidates or members of minorities.

For instance, Liberal Ken Dryden was an appointed candidate, as were former leader Stephane Dion and John McCallum. The power has also been used to appoint female candidates.

Nicole Foster Woollatt, president of the National Women's Liberal Commission, said while the leader should make unilateral appointments only "sparingly," he should keep that power.

"It's not something you want to use frequently. But it can be important."

Ignatieff was also challenged yesterday on when the party will put forward more specific policy ideas.

He told reporters one big priority will be employment insurance reform, with specific proposals for a "national standard" coming soon.

As for Dion, the Liberals plan a tribute to him this evening, with speeches by former prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Dion still faces a hefty tab of about $150,000 for his own Liberal leadership campaign back in 2006.

A fundraising cocktail bash also will be held for him to help retire that debt. Only four of the original 11 leadership contestants from that race have completely paid their debts. "

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Iggy's tired old professorial "'x' if necessary, but not necessarily 'x'" routine is hilarious in its vague shiftiness, like when he used it back in Dec. 2008, describing his support for Stephane Bumbledore Dion's cobble-ition with the separatists as "Coalition if necessary, but not necessarily coalition". Now, when it comes to parachuting "star" Liberal candidates into easy ridings, vs. following a grassroots approach, well, once again, Iggy's views are as clear as Liberal mud.
Iggy says he believes in the grassroots approach; which is to say, he does - well, might - believe this, insofar as he's also inclined to believe in the Red Star Chamber-appointed approach!
Of course, the article above fails to mention that Iggy himself was parachuted into the Etobicoke South riding in 2005, mysteriously shutting out other nominated grassroot candidates in that riding...
(see: http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2007/12/michael-ignatieff-cannot-speak-to.html ;

see: http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2007/12/liberal-michael-ignatieff-parachutes.html )
...after having not lived in Canada for three decades!!
Then suddenly, Count Iggula pops up in Etobicoke as the Great Liberal Lord-to-be of the Canadian Dominion!!
Homegrown Grits are hard to find, apparently.

When asked about how he became a candidate, Iggy coyly said then: "I cannot speak to the process by which the party designated me as a candidate."

Now that he has been acclaimed not only as a candidate, but also acclaimed as Liberal party leader, a prevaricating Iggy still 'can't speak to the process which designates' certain Liberal candidates over others.

Oh, well... asymmetrical democracy is a proud Liberal trait. Iggy's turning out to be Dion Redux.
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Focus must be on Liberal health care incompetence

So Ontario Health Minister David Caplan has fired eHealth boss Sarah Kramer (with a $300,000+ going-away package!) over untendered contract spending by her agency worth millions of tax dollars. But Caplan’s Liberal ass should also be booted out of office. And, this eHealth scam has been going on for some time now; this little turd was left over from George Smitherman's slithery tenure as former health minister. What's Smitherman got to say about it?Remember how loathe McGuinty's secretive Liberals were to avoid and prevent any scrutiny of what they were doing over in the Health ministry? What, pray tell, did the Liberals have to hide? Smitherman was shuffled out of the health ministry, but the stench he left behind still lingers.

Remember how self-righteous and on-cue-disdainful ole’ federalista Liberal Iggy Ignatieff gets over files which are left by minister’s aides: the minister should resign! The minister should be fired! Outrage! Blah..bla… When the federal deficit rises, Iggy goes ballistic: the minister should be fired!! The minister should resign!!

Blahh…blah..blaaah…but when provincial Grit Finance minister Dwight Duncan announced his own Ontario Liberals will also have their deficit unexpectedly increase by billions of dollars – no one gave a flicking shit! Ole Iggy didn’t pounce on Ole Dunko to resign! Iggy wants even MORE "stimulus" spending, more taxes, more debt! Remember how in opposition Liberal MPP Jim Bradley huffed and blustered, along with his friends in the press, about how Mike Harris was evil incarnate whenever some unionist at the hospital sneezed or had a gripe, which Bradley would turn into a holier-than-thou rant beyond all smugness? Yeah, Ole Jimmy’s Liberals have decidedly proven themselves to be far worse than any accusation that Bradley ever threw at Harris.

T. Marciniec wrote in "Our local rep is silent through the turmoil", (St. Catharines Standard, Jun.9, 2009):

"Premier Dalton McGuinty promised no tax increases -- then came the health tax. Now we await the HST as a further tax grab during this recession! When this tax is introduced, we have been promised tax breaks. Tax breaks for us with auto sector bailout debt? We wait with baited breath. Ontario sold surplus hydro power to factories and the United States at a reduced rate. Residential power users aren't getting any reduced rates. Instead, we pay a debt reduction charge on each of our hydro bills because of poor administration when the government owned Ontario Hydro.

The Smart Meter was introduced as a pretense of saving power and costs. We are supposed to believe this. The government mandated we must have the Smart Meter, but it can't mandate reducing our hydro rates when there is a surplus!

A version of eHealth existed, was disbanded and has again come to life. Some of the same people in the new eHealth were in the old version, and again allegations of over-paid executives and consultants and contract controversy are rampant, as before. Is this where our health tax is going to?

All this, and silence from St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley."

Certainly, Good Ole Jim Bradley ignored my previous letters, asking him to call in the ombudsman , and the auditor, for independent access to investigate his Liberal-run health monopoly. We now see that cabinet minister Jim Bradley had something to hide, and that Bradley is culpable of helping cover up for his Liberal health monopoly's failures - for years. Turn a blind eye, and refuse to answer questions: with a credo like that, and a fawning local press, why, no wonder Jimmy's been around since the Bee Gee's were still cranking out hits.

You see, when McGuinty’s Liberal health-care monopolists spend untendered millions of tax dollars in their state-run no-choice health-scare prison, you should simply trust ole Slicker McGinny and his co-conspirators when he says, as he inevitably will – WE’RE ONLY DOING THIS IN YOUR BEST INTERESTS, Folks!! Lookit, we’re spending your money because, well, let's face it... you can't be trusted to spend it yourselves. We Liberals know what's best for you, and so, Caplan is staying; Kramer is going.

Seriously – Caplan says he’s firing Kramer to “restore public confidence” in the eHealth agency – but really, public confidence would be better served if Caplan himself resigned. Who’s asking this question: “Mr. McGuinty, in order to restore public confidence in the publicly-funded health-monopoly which your ideological Liberal government imposes upon Ontarians, will you demand the resignation of the health minister responsible for this agency - David Caplan?”

Who’s asking how is it that Ontario Liberals are handing out such large amounts of tax cash without proper tender? Is this same cosy Liberal scam occurring in other parts of Caplan’s health ministry, or, for that matter, in other Liberal ministries? How can the public trust these Grits with their e-Stealth secrecy? Please note that Liberal Jim Bradley, when he had the chance to, over several years, refused to answer my letters asking him to call for increased transparency and independent oversight within his Liberal-run health monopoly - this as his government's eHealth scandal was, unknown to the public, unfolding. Shameful.

Incompetent, secretive Liberals – always hiding from accountability and scrutiny. Preventing and avoiding oversight by the Ombudsman, paying little attention to anything the provincial auditor might say; just fire the lackey; have the Grit politicians cover up the problem, and downplay it as no big deal. This Ontario Liberal-run health ministry is out of bloody control, and McGuinty’s Liberal stormtrooper monopolists will not even allow patients the choice to by-pass McGuinty’s state-made monopolist disaster, oh glory be thine, Tommy Douglas. You pay more, you get less; and when we find out the scams that are going on under the Liberal’s long, protruding noses, they just say ‘Hey: Trust us…everything’s OK’!!

Caplan’s ministry – as McGuinty himself has said – spends HALF of Ontario’s entire budget – and no one really has any oversight into what the flick these monopolists are up to. When hundreds die of c.dif infections in Dalton McGuinty’s hospitals - no criminal investigation is held. When St. Catharines is home to the hospital with the third highest patient mortality rate in Canada, local Liberal strongman Jim Bradley says NOTHING. No investigations held; no public explanations given, either by the Niagara Health System, by Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, by George Smitherman, David Caplan, or by McGuinty himself.

JUST DON'T ASK THESE LIBERAL FLICKERS ANY QUESTIONS, OK? As patients and taxpayers, be grateful for what they throw your way.

We saw newspaper reports on Jun 9, 2009, again, cancer wait times have not improved under McGuinty's tenure.

But what is the sexy issue that the press and pundits are chortling about? Why, it's about Lisa Raitt supposedly somehow disparaging cancer patients with remarks she made 5 months ago!!

And almost every press report insinuates that somehow Raitt said something evil about cancer patients, or the isotope issue, when categorically her comments were not about cancer patients at all. And as we've seen - this non-issue, mountain-out-of-a-molehill became sexy - because the press was attracted to it, gushing over some fictitious appearance of impropriety, yet ignoring the boring substance. CTV news (Jun.10, 2009) blustered about "outraged cancer patients" and how Raitt was somehow "advancing her political career". Liberal Carolyn Bennett babbled on about how Raitt was "absolutely incompetent and irresponsible" ('Really, Carolyn', someone should say, 'you're full of it yourself. Get flicking real, Madam. Your own pandering response was nauseatingly pathetic, almost as theatrical as Iggy's regular feigned outrages. Tiresome Liberal tripe.) Then there were letter writers, such as Deborah Kelly, or Sondra Rutman, or Walter Tedman, or V.Lauren, in the Jun.10, 2009 National Post, who seemingly also did not actually read or understand the context of Raitt's words - but were sufficiently somehow offended enough to write about their imagined slight. Truly unreal!

Really, these above people should read Christie Blatchford's column (" Nothing sexy in Raitt feeding frenzy ", (Globe and Mail, Jun.9, 2009) and get some perspective on the issue.

Now this morning (Jun.10, 2009), Raitt apologized for her comments (why?!) but that again isn't enough for some people. We all remember (or is the Liberal sycophant press doing its best to make us forget?) how Dalton McGuinty (smugly campaigning in a hospital lobby - yeah: talk about political ambitions!) simply walked away from a cancer patient during the last election, after the patient told McGuinty that his Liberals were not doing enough for patients.

Remember that, folks? Dirt bag McGuinty, the leader of this Ontario Flicking Liberal party, walks away from the man, essentially making out the patient to be a liar. Some quack hack with McGuinty even went so far as to insinuate that the patient might be depressed, making his opinion unworthy of McGuinty's time. (see also http://rightinniagara.blogspot.com/2007/09/youre-not-helping-me-angry-cancer.html)

No one cared about that, did they? Where was health-care monopolist Carolyn Bennett and her bag of Grit rhetoric then, as a Liberal was actually being irresponsible, when faced with an actual cancer patient?

We don't really concern ourselves too much when a Liberal leader walks away from a cancer patient who questions his duplicitous policies; or when hundreds die of c.dif in the Liberal health monopoly, and no independent investigation is held; or when the St. Catharines hospital is found to have the third highest death rate in Canada, yet Liberal Jim Bradley, to this day, refuses to provide an official explanation; or when wait times continue to increase, while Liberal buffoons mismanage our outrageous taxes.

But somehow with Raitt, the Liberals and their hangers-on have found a new scapegoat, a convenient red-herring to divert our attention from the criminal Liberal incompetence actually taking place in Dalton McGuinty's health-care monopoly, right now, as we speak.

Don't be fooled by Liberal healthcare duplicity.